Underground
by ElleDesperado
Summary: She is an orphan who made the wrong choice. A choice that lead her to possibly the most inhuman man she's ever met. He tears her life apart; murders the one person who has ever meant anything to her, but she won't back down; she will make him pay.


**Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction based mainly on the Batman trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan but also some aspects are borrowed from the comics (these instances will be referenced in the AN at the end of the chapter). Batman created by Bob Kane. I make no profits from this work.**

THIS DISCLAIMER IS FOR ALL CHAPTERS.

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**CHAPTER ONE: BUSTED**

She lay in the black, metal cot that Sister Magdalene designated her some fourteen years ago, under a thin gray blanket that she had pulled up to just below her dark blue eyes.

Already, the shallow, open-mouthed breathing of the other orphaned girls could be heard throughout the large dorm room, indicating their slumber. In the far right corner, whispering and giggling came from a trio of older girls, who in their age had become more rebellious and less fearful of the wrath of the Sisters.

Almost on cue, her ears picked up the soft patter of footsteps coming down the hall and towards their dorm before the door creaked open and the covered head of the Mother Superior, Sister Elizabeth, poked in. She closed her eyes in a relaxed manner and made her breathing shallow just as the nun's radar passed over her, unnoticed yet another night.

She heard Sister Elizabeth hiss a "Shhhhh" and whisper loudly "Get to bed! Go to sleep!" at the trio of offenders, followed by the girls quick tip toeing back into their own black, metal cots.  
The sour faced old Nun remained in the doorway, her features lost to the shadows, for a few moments more before she left, closing the door and encompassing the dorm room in a lonely darkness.  
As the same soft pattering of footsteps could be heard slowly retreating, and Sister Elizabeth switched off the dim hallway light, she checked her digital watch beneath the covers; its small screen read 22:08 in lime green.

Waiting a few minutes more to make sure everyone had settled down and the coast was clear, she quickly threw back the covers and jumped out of the bed with practiced silence. Already dressed in a maroon hoodie and jeans, she grabbed her beat up black converse and slipped them on, before pushing her pillow under her blanket so that the bed looked occupied.

Pulling her hood up, over her dark brown - almost black – shoulder length hair that she had pulled back into a small ponytail, she moved silently over to a window that looked out over West Harlow and had a wide ledge that began at her waist.

This was all a well-practiced routine to her, one she had carried out almost religiously for the last four years, and, considering her excelling ability in gymnastics, her choice from a limited palette of mandatory extracurricular activities, it was no difficult task for her to heave herself on to the ledge, climb out the tall window, land on the roof without disturbing the tiles, and climb down the drain pipe to the empty street two stories below.

As soon as the worn down sole's of her shoes hit the pavement she was off running toward the Narrows, keeping to the shadows lest the ever vigilant GCPD patrol car spots her.

Less than a decade ago her chances of making it through the Narrows unscathed would have been slim to none, regardless of the hour, but since was enforcement of the Dent Act… since the Batman became an outlaw and disappeared… the streets were a lot safer; even the Narrows. Perhaps _organised_ crime had been greatly reduced, but there was still regular crimes; acts of desperation. There were still Arkham-worthy crazies lurking in the darkest of corners.  
With that thought in mind she picked up her pace.

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She looked at her watch again at 22:28 when she stood outside the twelve-foot tall entrance gate of South City Park, taking a second to catch her breath. She soon made quick work of scaling the gate and before she knew it she could hear the familiar laughter and general conversations of her closet friends. She found the slight gap in the bushes that lead to a small clearing which they had made their unofficial hang out spot.

"…work is there in the sewers?" Jimmy was asking Kevin as she took a seat on the ground, close to the small fire they had made.

"I don't know, man. This guy with a foreign accent came up to me earlier today, offering some work down in the sewers. When I asked him what kind of work, he said he'd tell me once I'd accepted, so I said give me a day to find some other guys who might be interested, and he told me he would be back around tomorrow." Kevin replied nonchalantly, taking a swig of cheap cider.

"Wait, wait, wait!" She interjected. "So you're just going to accept a mysterious job offer from a mysterious foreign dude, without so much as a detail of information first?"

"Look babe, it's okay for you to say that; you got a place to sleep at night, and 3 square meals a day. For guys like me, and soon Jimmy here, we've got to support ourselves, which is pretty damn hard to do when there are no jobs" was Kevin's heated replied.

"Wow there Kevin, I didn't mean to offend you." She said with a slight chuckle, trying to lighten the mood again.  
"It sounds shady, is all I'm trying to say. Oh and the next time you call me _babe_ I'm going to punch you in the throat!"

"Of course it's shady, _sweet cheeks_, but believe me when I say I haven't got any better offers" Kevin said, smirking knowingly at her after use of the pet name, although reverted back to his earlier relaxed attitude. He then turned his attention back to Jimmy, who during their exchange had begun to roll a cigarette while listening to their light-hearted bickering.  
"So, Jimmy, are you interested?"

"Yeah, sure man" was Jimmy's less than enthused reply.

She had blanked the conversation as soon as the words sweet checks left the insufferable Kevin's fat, acne ridden face, because a boiling rage began to build up within her, that any second was going to make her pounce at Kevin, knocking the cheap alcohol from his sweaty hands and pound his face in with her bare fists until-

"Cass." Jimmy was now sitting next to her, staring at her face expectantly. while Kevin was already gone. "Oh good, welcome back" he said sarcastically.

"I did it again, huh?" Cassandra said sheepishly.

They sat there silently for a few minutes, looking into the dancing flames of the fire as it battled against the cold that hung ever-present in the early December air. Cass' numb fingers fumbled with the zip of her hoodie, as she pulled it up over her lips to create her very own central heating, generated from warm exhales.

"What did Kevin mean by 'and soon' you, Jimmy?" Cass asked, without taking her eyes from the flames.

"I'm seventeen in less than a week's time. I age out." He said, already resigned to his harsh reality.

"But what about Mark? Surely they can't kick you out if you have a younger brother there?" Cass asked with hopeful incredulity.

"It's about time I start on my own path anyway. If I'm smart about this, I could have a good setup by the time Mark ages out, you know?" Jimmy said while drawing something in the soil with his finger.

"You're a really good brother" She smiled at him. He shrugged and gave her a half-smile.

Cass looked at what he was drawing in the soil; it was a bat.

"Whatever happened to that guy?" She wondered aloud.

"We know what happened; he became a bad guy. I don't find it shocking either; not in a city like this." He stopped then, wiped his hand on his jeans that had a hole in the right knee, and turned to look up at the clear night sky.

"No one is definitively good or bad; people are capable of doing both good and bad things. It depends on which one you do most. In the case of the Batman, I think he did more good than bad."

"So what you're saying is that, if given the opportunity, all those men in Blackgate, all those crazies in Arkham, they could be 'good'?"

"Yes. Of course they could" she said almost earnestly.

With that said Jimmy burst out into a fit of laughter; not because what she said was humorous, rather, just to express how ridiculous he thought what she said was.

She scowled and brought her knees up to her chest, crossing her arms over them, waiting for his empty laughter to end.

"Look, I'm not saying that helping an old woman by carrying her groceries, or picking up trash from littered streets would make murdering a person okay. But nobody is beyond redemption" Her anger flared as she was not taken seriously.

"Well, come back to me once you've seen the real world outside of a nun run orphanage, then we'll talk. Until then, we'll just have to agree to disagree" Jimmy said as he recovered from his fit of laughter and wiped tears from his eyes.

"'The real world'?" She questioned while quirking an eyebrow at him. "Please do expand on your superior experiences, oh knowledgeable one". She did a mock bow then sat back, laughing lightly.

"Okay; you're a jerk" Jimmy said with a scowl, although a playful one.

"Hey! What are you kids doing there!" a voice yelled at them. From the authoritative tone of the man's voice, it was clear he was cop. As the light of a flashlight landed on Cass's face, she quickly jumped up, followed by Jimmy, and they both ran in the opposite direction of the officer.

Taking a quick glance behind her she couldn't see the police man, so she relaxed her pace as they neared the entrance gate.

"So are you going to the sewers tomorrow for that job?" she quickly asked as they scaled the tall gates, the cast iron bars cold beneath her stiff hands.

"Yeah, I might as well check it out" he said as they simultaneously threw a leg over the spiked top. "Kevin said the guy will be back around here tomorrow at twelve".

"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow" Cassandra said, giving him a half hug before they both broke into a sprint again, in opposite directions. She didn't make it to corner on the opposite street before a hand grabbed the back of her hoodie, pulling her back and promptly ending her daring escape. The other hand pulled back her hood, causing her hair to become dishevelled. She looked up at her 'assailant'; it was none other than the cop from earlier.

_Busted._

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**This is my first attempt at writing a proper story, so please tell me if this was absolutely painful to read, and why :)**

**I know it starts off slow, but rest assured, Bane will be in the next chapter (which I'm working on right now), and will feature heavily throughout the story! (****C'mon, level with me here peeps; Bane and his badassery is the only reason we're here, right?)**  


**Also, if there are (m)any spelling/grammer or just plain logic mistakes, please let me know :)**

**Thank you**


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